Small miniaturised apparatuses, which fall under the term personal organisers typically comprise features such as telephone and address lists for contact persons, file storage and exchange with other devices, calendar, clock and calculator. These apparatuses are typically provided with a small keyboard and a small display or alternatively a touch sensitive display, on which data can be entered.
Personal organisers available on the marketplace today expand the possibilities of performing many different tasks on a small and mobile unit. These tasks may involve, communicating via e-mail, up-dating information over for instance the Internet, exchanging files with others or other systems, processing text files, playing audio files, presenting graphical files, etc.
Recently, the functionality, which typically has been found in so-called personal organisers, has been introduced into mobile phones. Another trend is that mobile phones are adapted to interact closely with personal organisers, whereby communication between these devices are accomplished by means of for instance an infra red or a radio interface.
It is known that mobile phones may make use of the Internet and its associated services through suitable modems. Personal organisers may also be equipped with radio interfaces, such as Mobitex™ interfaces, which provide for the issuance and reception of e-mails.
So-called WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) terminals recently put on the market enable terminals of limited physical size, memory and processing power, to retrieve and deliver information over the Internet through a so-called WAP browser.
As an example of a known personal organiser device reference is made to EP-A-0 853 287.
Prior art document EP-A-0 853 287 shows a PDA (personal digital assistant), comprising a miniaturised personal computer, a GSM interface and a GPS unit.
The above personal digital assistant is adapted to offer Internet access to the user. A certain user profile may be set up on the PDA whereby the location or travel route and accompanying information is automatically provided as part of an Internet search session. In this way, context related messages can be searched and provided by specific Internet servers.
User friendly operation is a very important aspect for personal mobile devices. One widely used way of solving the schism between advanced functionality and user friendly operation is to provide menu driven interfaces, which prompts possibilities in accordance with a predetermined task structure. This structure may be further refined according to the users own preferences.
However, menu driven systems are likely to appear tedious in connection with relatively small handheld devices, because of the limited space available for especially the graphical interface data enter means and because of the mobile aspects of their use.
Another way of facilitating the control of a handheld device is to implement voice recognition in the device.
The Ericsson™ mobile phone model T28, comprises a number representation function and a set of contact lists, whereby calls from persons belonging to predetermined lists may be filtered from gaining access to the user, i.e. obviating that the mobile phone rings and disturbs the user in a meeting situation or the like. Instead, the calling party receives a message from an answering application, that the user can be contacted later. Persons on another specific list may be allowed to call the user. The model also comprises voice recognition as a data entry means. This is an example of a context-related control of the mobile phone or personal organiser.
Prior art document U.S. Pat. No. 5,434,908 shows a message system coupled between a telephone exchange system and a computer or server, which includes calendar/schedule programs of individual subscribers. Predetermined messages are presented to a calling party, the messages corresponding to the called subscribers schedule settings.
Prior art document U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,700 shows a method and system that allows calls to be processed according to a called party's preferences. In a preferred embodiment, the system includes a database containing call origin priority information, call delivery preferences, and subscriber appointment schedule information such as call delivery address and times at which the caller expects to be at the call delivery address. Moreover, calls may be screened according to the subscriber's schedule and the priority attributed to the caller.
Prior art document WO 98/06210 shows a mobile telephone having a short range intra red interface being adapted to communicate with apparatuses near the mobile telephone. Both voice signals and remote control signals can be transmitted over the mobile telephone.
Prior art document WO 94/06106 shows a remote control system, which is adapted to control apparatuses in an environment in which the remote control is situated. The system according to the above document comprises three types of elements: A controller (handheld remote control device), a receiver (the device to be controlled) and a location information transceiver. According to the above document, a plurality of location information transceivers are located in the various facilities of a building and are transmitting location information to the controllers that may be situated in a given facility. The controller is informed about its location and the controller can, based on a location address map stored within the controller, automatically select the address codes of the receiver devices affecting that facility.